Tormek jig for drawknife

Re: Tormek jig for drawknife

David Miller from Iowa

>Hi Todd �

I hesitated posting a response because I don�t even know what a Tormek is. However, I do have a number of drawknives and have found them very easy to sharpen with a simple belt grinder to get the nicks out, then whetstones to put the edge on � 15 minutes max, probably less time than it takes to set up whatever jig you are talking about. With regard to the back bevel, a drawknife is one of the few tools that doesn�t care from whence the bevel comes. Back bevel vs. no actually has more to do with the set of the handles than it does the bevel. It all depends on your shaving style, the type of work you are doing, the type of wood you are working and the bedding angle of your shaving horse (presuming you have one � if you don�t, you need one. You really can�t get in the groove with a drawknife without a shaving horse). Good luck, David

Re: Tormek jig for drawknife

john jesseph

>Maybe the knife jig clamped onto the middle of the drawknife would do it, but it would still take a fair amount of freehand control that way. I have a tormek but sharpen drawknives on the beltsander and with the sides of my stones. Straight drawknives can be done with the planer blade fixture, but it is expensive.

John J.

A little geometry

jim_reed@marietta

>I love my Tormek, but I sharpen my drawknives freehand with sandpaper. I have made some Tormek jigs, however, and have a few thoughts on this one. The secret is using the horizontal bar. Make a plywood sandwich where the middle piece is slightly larger than the diameter of the bar. When you glue them together, recess this center piece about 3/4". Put a slot in the plywood that is perpendicular to the bar. This is your pivot point. Use it to describe your arc--as it moves in the arc becomes tighter. Now clamp your drawknife to the jig and sharpen away. I know this sounds confusing. Email for details.

Re: Tormek jig for drawknife

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>*DANGER, DANGER, AMATEUR ADVICE*

I have not used a Tormek for this, but the manual illustrates sharpening a small carvers drawknife using the SVM-45 Kife Jig along with the Universal Support.

I would think that the SVM-100 Long Knife Jig would work better with larger drawknives. It has a wider mouth for gripping the blade.

Re: Tormek jig for drawknife

Matt Woodworth

>I have a tormek and a drawknife. When I first bought them I was looking through the instruction book to figure out to sharpen it and IIRC, it tells you to do it freehand.

I tried it and I'm really happy with the results. As a matter of fact, I did three drawknifes and they all turned out well.

Re: Tormek jig for drawknife

John Aniano in Central NJ

>Todd,

I have sharpened drawknives using my Tormek but did not use any of the horizontal or vertical guide bars. Instead I made a simple wooden jig - sort of a U-shaped frame. The frame was made from heavy plywood scrap (~3/4" thick) and is as long as the drawknife steel portion. The bottom of the U-shape is the long dimension; the "uprights" of the "U" are ~2.5" long and allow you to clamp the blade using (2) small C-clamps just at the points where the blade ends turn ~90 degrees and enter the handle. When clamped, this leaves the whole center of the blade edge exposed and the handles facing up and away from you. Then find a piece of broom stick dowel long enough to reach the floor while holding the jig frame at the proper grinding angle. You will have to drill a ~3/4" diameter hole into the plywood frame at an angle for the long dowel. You have to determine the proper angle by trying the whole assembly of parts in place in front of the Tormek. Ideally, the dowel end that touches the floor shouldn't move around; I have held this in place on the floor with my feet. This makes it easy to slightly alter the bezel grinding angle, but only slightly.

In use, the dowel holds the jig in place so the grinding angle is fixed. There is enough pivoting movement (of the dowel on the floor) so you can move the blade from one end of the drawknife to the other while grinding. Yes, there is a small arc, but it works. In practice, using this jig is sort of freehand but with a good measure of angle control.

I can't claim this idea: I heard of it from someone out there (probably via some Badger Pond folks) and adapted it to fit my grinding setup.

Hope this helps,

John